We have seen some pretty nasty sides of the Liberal Party since the Coalition came to power last year.
There has been a “just add brutality” style approach to asylum seeker policy. There has been a “let’s promote racism” style approach towards the Racial Discrimination Act. There has been a “dob in your mates” style campaign within the public service asking employees to dob in a mate who dares criticise the government on social media.
If there has been a positive side to the dob in a mate campaign it is that has proven that the proposed changes to the racial discrimination act have nothing to do with promoting freedom of speech.
With unemployment up around 20% from when the Coalition formed government I would have thought threatening more people with the sack may not have been the best idea.
Anyway to those of you in the public service who are bigots and racists, the government is on your side. To those of you who think that this is questionable policy, look out because if you share your views the government will seek to have you sacked.
Well with the budget fast approaching, what sort of nastiness can we expect to see from a government that is proving itself as brutal as the Sri Lankan war criminals that they seek to protect.
It will probably come as no surprise to many that the Coalition are targeting the countries most vulnerable people.
It has become public knowledge over the past week or so that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are setting their sights on pensioners.
The Coalition would like them to know that they have out stayed their welcome and that although their decades of hard work and paying taxes were once appreciated, just like your reasonable standard of living that was in the past.
Granny will be rugging up now she can’t afford the heat…
It is not clear as yet what parts of the pension will be targeted but there have been some strong hints.
It seems we will be working for even longer with the retirement age likely to be lifted to 70.
I still have a while to go before I have to worry about retiring, but for the tens of thousands in their early 60’s this will be a bitter blow. For the elderly it must seem like someone has just moved the goalpost, for those in industries that cater for retiree’s such as specialist travel, it must seem that Tony Abbott is stealing their customers out from under them.
Other possibilities that have been raised regarding the pension have been indexing, and means testing.
This could mean that the pension may not be raised at the same rate as the cost of living, effectively slow starving the elderly.
It also must send a shiver up the spine of those about to retire who own a home or have investments. If Tony Abbott and the Liberals and Nationals have their way it may see these people forced to sell their assets just to have the cash to live their final years with dignity.
For those who wonder what the type of person looks like that would kick an old lady out of the home she has raised her kids in, played with her grandkids in, and spent the last 50 years living in with her late husband, look at the picture below.
The bully attacking your granny
That’s right, Tony Abbott is that man.
Not only does he want to punish your granny, he wants to punish her at the same time as he pays rich women to breed with his signature parental leave scheme.
What you probably haven’t heard much about is Tony Abbott and the Coalitions planned attack on charities.
The Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC) was set up and created in 2012 to support community charity organisations. The idea was for the ACNC to assist and relieve charity organisations of much of the burden of administrative work and red tape. The ACNC has proved vital to many charities as it gives them the ability to focus more of their energy on supporting others, which is the very reason charities exist.
Tony Abbott and the Coalition have announced their intentions to shut the ACNC down.
However it is not only the support the ACNC provide charities, they also give people a means to report complaints.
There are not a lot of scams that involve charities, but there is still a fear within the community about giving out credit card or bank account details for example.
Any action that lessens security for those who wish to donate to charities as a consequence is a bad idea that will certainly have a negative impact on those already suffering.
Closing down the ACNC will not only mean that charity organisations will have to spend extra on administration costs, but by lowering security it will also make it harder for them to raise vital funding.
An open letter was sent to Tony Abbott requesting that he reconsider his plans to shut down a vital charity resource. The letter was signed by representatives of many charity organisations such as Save the Children, St John Ambulance Australia, the RSPCA, Volunteering Australia, Lifeline, Australian Conservation Foundation, the YMCA and many more.
The open letter can be viewed via this link.
For those who wish to have a say on this matter, there is an online petition that can be signed via this link.
This is a government that thinks it is OK to punish those who are the most vulnerable while paying some of the most wealthy to breed.
If you have parents or grandparents, then Tony Abbott is not only about to break his election promise to them, but he is preparing his attack on them now.
If you give or have ever given to a charity, Tony Abbott wants to render your efforts worthless by adding to the cost of running a charity.
The Coalition are showing their true colors, and they are uglier than the color of a plain packet of smokes.
They don’t deserve a second chance or a second term.
We need to talk to people about these acts, as the mainstream media don’t appear to be.
It looks like once again, it’s up to us.
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Shutting down the ACNC is not about making life harder and more expensive for charities (although that will be one consequence) – it is about removing the transparency that the ACNC has brought to the management of charitable trusts. Trustees frequently pay themselves an absolute fortune to manage the trusts, leaving a relative pittance to actually be doled-out for charitable purposes. With a similar motive to removing consumer protections around financial advice, the dismantling of the ACNC is primarily motivated by the Coalition attitude that all is fair in love, war and business. Trustees have forged themselves a lucrative little niche, people literally just give them money out of the goodness of their hearts (well, technically they give it to the charity, but let’s not quibble about details) and since the transparency of the ACNC (and the limitations the accompanying legislation placed on how much of a charity’s turnover is allowed to be spent on administration) has made this more difficult, it has always been on the chopping block (just another one of those little surprises, this no surprises government was planning all along).
They believe it is the right of anyone making money to make that money anyway they want and it is not appropriate for government (or anyone else) to impinge on that right. This is why they think expenses claims are fair game (if you can get away with claiming it, then more power to you); that financial advisors shouldn’t have to act in the client’s interest (only a mug would pass up the opportunity to direct a whole bunch of ‘client’ investment toward their mates’ projects in return for kick backs) and it’s also why they are repulsed by the idea of welfare.
You see, they actually believe that everyone would lie, cheat, exploit to accumulate wealth, if only they were smart enough. They also believe that poor people (read: stupid people) exist in order to be exploited by rich people (read: clever people). They simply have no respect for anyone they perceive to be too feeble-minded to at least try to play the game. This is why Tony Abbott has genuine respect for Arthur Sinodinos, and Barry O’Farrell – they may have been brought undone but at least they gave it a good crack (and let’s face it, they haven’t really been brought undone, they have fallen only in the eyes of the plebs, they will both do just fine on the other side of the politician/business lobby relationship in the future).
It is also why he and his ministers are able to routinely lie, cheat and sabotage the economy in order to stage a budget emergency, rip funding from the children of war veterans and pensioners, and condemn asylum seekers to unspeakable horrors, all while maintaining a straight face and continuing to insist that they are the grown-up, trustworthy, competent government Australia needs.
They are in power, their friends’ pockets (and their own via gifts, expenses rorts, and kickbacks) are being handsomely lined. They are playing the game and they are playing it very well. They are genuinely proud of themselves and their achievements to date and they honestly believe that anyone smart enough to understand the game would be impressed too. They are the very essence of corruption.
Thanks Wixxy and DrDanis above for your excellent summation of this heartless corporate puppet government.
The deceitful policies which they took to the election will soon be in full show to the common citizens of this once egalitarian country.
Treasonous is the word that fits this Abbott government – their sworn oath of office to serve Australia and its citizens was but a pompous charade, they never meant a word. Their only allegiance is to the powers that facilitated their election – trans-national corporations.
Their colours are unmistakeable to me; that of the Jolly Roger – irresponsible traitorous corporate pirates.
The problems that JP Morgan have identified in Europe are strong legislatures (or “weak executives” as they put it) strong regional representation, protected labour rights, strong constitutions and political systems that rely in part upon consensus building instead of dictatorship. They also identify the rise of democratic populist parties and the public right to political protest as major impediments to their “Eurozone Adjustment” objectives.
JP Morgan make it absolutely clear that they would like to see European states remodelled with much more powerful, dictatorial and centralised executives, they want to see the destruction of labour rights and they are certainly not keen to allow populist anti-austerity parties or public protest to get in the way of this agenda.
Essentially what this document demonstrates is that JP Morgan see the decline of European fascism since the 1940s and its replacement with mixed-economy social democracies as a great disappointment, that they are determined to steer Europe back towards fascism and that they are intent on using the financial sector meltdown as an excuse to use the utterly false Great Neoliberal Lie narrative to justify this pro-fascist agenda.
The motivation for a major financial organisation like JP Morgan to promote the fascistic remodeling of Europe should be absolutely obvious. States administered by powerful centralised and dictatorial executives are far more easily influenced by corporate interests than governments constrained by strong legislatures, fair judicial systems, strong regional representation, robust organised labour and popular freedom of protest, all enshrined by a durable constitution.
To put it more simply, a state with a centralised and dictatorial government is far more malleable than a state in which the government must balance the interests of corporate interests with those of organised labour, regional interests and the public at large. If labour rights are eroded, local government weakened and the right to popular protest is curtailed, the enforcement of corporate interests becomes much easier. All the corporations need do is financially coerce (or economically straitjacket) the cetralised executive branch of government in order to gain almost complete power over whole national economies.
Returning to the quoted section of the JP Morgan report, we can clearly see that they do not like consensus building governments that abide by their constitutions and protect civil liberties, in fact they disparage this kind of co-operative approach as “clientalism” [sic] (err I believe they meant clientelism).
In reality, the general concept of clientelism isn’t the problem to JP Morgan at all. The problem is that under the social democratic model, government “clientelism” towards corporate interests is curtailed. The corporate lobby don’t want the states of Europe to function as the clients of the general public through strong local democratic government (and the checks and balances offered by a robust legislature), through strong labour organisation, or through the liberty to protest. JP Morgan seem to want the states of Europe to act as exclusive clients of the corporatist agenda.
Excellent post & brilliant replies, way beyond my ability to equal. This one’s going straight to the pool room.